Sky’s Crawford receives Charles Wheeler Award
Alex Crawford received the Charles Wheeler Award for outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism at an event held at the University of Westminster. In her acceptance speech, she paid tribute to ‘arsey journalists’ who asked difficult questions.
Lady Wheeler has just presented @AlexCrawfordSky with The Charles Wheeler award for outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism.
— Uni of Westminster (@UniWestminster) June 4, 2015
Crawford started her career at the Wokingham Times and completed her NCTJ while working there. She told the audience at Westminster that traditional journalism skills still matter:
“We are told our new tools are GoPros and Twitter..no matter how many followers you have..we have to hold on to old skills”
She joined Sky News at its launch in 1989 and has since received numerous awards for her foreign reporting in Libya, South Africa and numerous conflict zones. She thanked and praised the bravery of ‘the fixers and translators’ that she has worked with over the years.
Crawford said:
“You have to make mistakes, you have to take risks and you have to gamble if you want to succeed”
She said she had no plans for retirement and praised Charles Wheeler for continuing working into his 80s. Previous winners of the Award included Robert Peston and Jeremy Paxman.
Alan Yentob, creative director of the BBC, spoke afterwards and gave an insight into the future of the BBC. He blasted critics of the BBC and said he worried deeply about its future.
“You can hold us (the BBC) to account, but not to ransom” Yentob tells politicians.
— Steve Hill (@pow365) June 4, 2015
Boris Johnson, who was in the audience, asked whether the BBC would produce anything as great as Breaking Bad. Yentob said that British writing talent was already going abroad because the BBC couldn’t afford to compete.